This Just In

Really wasn't planning to post anything today. Figured people are barely keeping up as it is and soon I'll start getting all those 'I don't know how you find the time' messages. But this just happened in my living room about an hour ago and I'm still in shock:

Just for fun

me. age 2.

Melt-my-heart

I know everybody else thinks THEIR kids are the cutest on the planet, but seriously - how did our kids get to be SO darn cute?

Happiest baby on the block

punch drunk happy:

Not likely to be an astronaut

Sawyer continues to be afraid of everything new. Today we went to a little kiddie festival in Lancaster Courthouse and while every other toddler we know ran straight into the moon bounce with giggling fits of hysteria as they fell all over themselves, Sawyer refused to so much as cross the threshold. Our typical response to this kind of fear is to, say, thrust him through the mesh door kicking and screaming assuming that he'll suddenly realize that its something FUN we are trying to make him do. That face-your-fears-son tactic never seems to help. After all the kids had moved on to the petting zoo, Sawyer returned alone to the moon bounce. He got in, spent about five minutes sitting on the inflatable floor and then another ten minutes just standing, getting a feel for the thing. Whoa! Whoa!! he said with each tiny move he made. He was having so much fun NOT jumping I finally had to bribe him with candy to get him to come out. Oh, and I learned something new about myself today. I'm not above bribing a kid with candy to avoid a scene in public.

Do-it-yourself

Sawyer is getting into that 'me do it' phase. He loves wearing boots - cowboy or wellies - because he can put them on by himself even though 9 out of 10 times they go on the wrong feet. We spent 20 minutes putting on his pajamas the other night because he couldn't figure out how to pull up the butt. He helps himself to snacks, opens doors, turns on and off lights, brushes his own teeth, lets the water out of the bathtub and carries his own lunch box to school. This morning, he also put on his own hat before we walked out the door. I guess he didn't realize that I had already put a a hat on him.

Pumpkin Patch

Arden and I joined Sawyer's class at the pumpkin patch today. Typically, he was TERRIFIED of the hay ride (for a kid who loves tractors, I can't believe how scared he is of them). We forced him on kicking and screaming. He didn't want to sit in the wet grass to eat his snack. And he wanted me to carry him everywhere (like having Arden in the backpack wasn't enough). But, when it came to racing the other kids into the pumpkin patch, he made a bee line for the biggest pumpkin he could find. Then he said: Help mama. Hold. Up. Right. Like I can carry TWO kids AND two giant pumpkins. I may be supermom these days, but I am definitely not superwoman.

Cousins!

It's a beautiful thing.

Can't believe my eyes

I'm at work. Sawyer's daycare is closed today (WHO CLOSES ON COLUMBUS DAY?). So I had to bring him with me to work. He survived our entire morning meeting at a restaurant. Played with his cars on the floor of my office for a while. Ate lunch. Then I put on a movie and now here he is - sleeping - for more than an hour on the floor. It's a blimey miracle I tell you.

Growing up

It seems like the second one grows up faster than the first. It's survival, I think. They have to keep up. Arden was clawing at Sawyer's dinner last night so I put her in the opposite chair with a cracker - Sawyer didn't even start sitting in a regular chair until he was 18 months old. She sat there perfectly still, content as could be, munching away. The whole scene just cracked me up.

We had our 9 month check up yesterday - funny, with Sawyer I could have spit out every statistic they gave me at the doctor's office. All I can remember about Arden's appointment is that she's still short - 35th percentile. After the appointment I took her grocery shopping and somebody stopped me - because when you have a baby in the grocery store it's impossible to get through without somebody stopping to coo over the baby - and they asked me amid all the cooing: 'How much does she weigh?' Random. Especially since I had been at the pediatricians less than an hour ago and had her weighed, but I didn't have a clue. (A little less than 19 pounds - I checked when I got home). Then the lady asked me: 'Where does she get her red hair?' I wouldn't call it red - but it does have a lot of blond in it now and the way it stands up on her head like a fuzzy halo it might have been reflecting some of the light from the deli meat display.

Happy Happy Happy

Scott was floating after his first day on the new job. He's really excited about the people he's working with/for, and he is so impressed with the organization. They were completely ready for him - name on the cubical, computer set up, passwords, keycard, parking passes, cell phone number, a welcome message on the big screen and, yes, balloons. Lesson learned: However long it took them do to all that, an hour, a day, a week, it was worth it. The little things go such a long way. What a difference from places where they scramble to find you a wobbly chair to sit on your first day!

Bathtime Calamity

All together now: BANG BANG BANG!

I survived the first bedtime routine by myself and got the kids out the door this morning relatively intact and without any major meltdowns (although I forgot my cell phone and my calendar and I was 15 minutes late to my Monday morning meeting). We miss daddy already, but wish him luck and know he'll be great. For you moms of two out there, let me just say that it gets a lot easier when they can take a bath together. I have no idea how people with three kids manage.

Dad.

There's been a huge void on this blog – something I haven't talked about, even though I think about it all the time. It's like one of those appendages at the end of your hand that you don't pay much mind to until it's broken and wrapped in a cast and suddenly you're crippled. In this case, it's my husband.

Dad

For the past nine months, while business has been slow, Scott has been Mr. Dad. When Arden was born, he kicked into high gear. We play man-on-man defense at home. He gets Sawyer up, fed and dressed every morning. He drops him off at daycare while I deal with Arden. He picks Sawyer up every night, feeds him dinner, and rocks him to sleep after I've done the bath and books routine. He cooks us all dinner and cleans up the dishes and picks up the house while I bathe the kids. And two or three nights a week he does it all himself while I work late at the newspaper or cover events and meetings. He's the one daycare calls when Sawyer needs to be picked up and he's the one that takes the kids to the doctor. When I put try Sawyer to bed at night, he looks up at me with sweet round eyes and says: Where's dada? Want hug dada.

He has a magic ability to get our babies to take naps.

Having two babies - let's not mince words here - is Really F-king Hard! (okay I minced one word, but it's a family blog). And I couldn't do it without Scott. I'm not one of these super domesticated women. I'm terrible at cleaning. I hate recipes. I'm really not that good at taking care of the children (we survive, somehow). I take no pride in my domestic chores. In fact, I'd rather work and make NO money if I could hire a maid and a cook and a nanny to do the hard parts and just get to enjoy my family. Me being a housewife is about as laughable as me being a quarterback for the Washington Redskins.

Naptime is not my forte: Evidence.

Scott, on the other hand, excels at all these domestic things (he's cringing as he reads this) and were it not for the crushing weight of bills and the fact that his income potential so far surpasses mine that it takes a whole extra sheet of paper to graph it, he might be perfectly happy to stay at home and raise the family.

On a playdate to the museum.

But the world being as it is, and us having two-point-five children to support, he needs a good, steady, reliable job with benefits that we can depend on for the next 20-something years. We're all done with self-employment (at least until we retire and open a ski-yurt-b&b-ranch in Colorado). And - so - DRUMROLL PLEASE . . .

Scott has taken a job in Northern Virginia with a wonderful construction company that builds high-end custom homes in the Great Falls area. For now, that means he is going to be living up there during the week while I live down here. (It's about two hours away). I know that raises about a million questions - How will that work? Won't it be hard on me? Will I move up there soon?

She's her father's daughter. (J. Kim photo)

The truth is, we don't know yet. All we know is that this is a really good opportunity for Scott, and we're going to try this happily-married-living-separately for a while and see how it goes. It's not like we are the first family ever to do it - many parents travel for work. I may not be the ideal candidate for single-momdom, and BELIEVE ME, I am going to miss the heck out of him (especially when I'm trying to potty train Sawyer). But the world is crumbling around us, and on the same day that congress failed to sign the bailout, Scott signed his offer.

So, Monday morning this blog will take on a whole new purpose. It will be a way for Scott to be with us for all those little moments that happen sometime between breakfast and daycare.

Encouraging us to try new things. (J. Kim photo)

And Scott: We love you. We are SO proud of you. And, we wish you Good Luck on Monday.

Baaaah!

I have a very distinct memory of going to a petting zoo when I was about 6 years old. All was fine and good until some pushy goat who hadn't had his fill bit my finger, forever scarring me (mentally). I like domesticated animals in theory, but being a child of suburbia I am rather nervous around anything that makes a barnyard sound. That said, I recently added 'own goat' to my list of things I want to do before I die. So, I was glad to see that Sawyer wasn't afraid. I'll just wait until he's old enough to feed the animals before I acquire any. Or, if the economy tanks, maybe we'll start a small farm on the property and start exploiting him a little sooner than expected.